Washington Real Estate Investment Trust Completes Sales of Office and Industrial Properties for $50.5 Million
ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Washington Real Estate Investment Trust (WRIT) (NYSE: WRE) has completed the sale of The Ridges office building for $27.5 million. In a separate transaction, WRIT completed the sale of its Ammendale I and II and Amvax industrial buildings for $23.0 million. The Ridges is located at 200 Orchard Ridge Drive in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is 104,000 square feet. The Ammendale and Amvax buildings are located at 11800-11900 Baltimore Avenue, and 12104, 12140, 12200 and 12240 Indian Creek Court in Beltsville, Maryland and total 305,000 square feet.
The Ridges was built in 1990 and purchased by WRIT in 2006 as part of a portfolio acquisition. WRIT achieved a net book gain of $3.8 million and the building was sold to a user/occupant. The unleveraged internal rate of return was 11% over the four year holding period. The Ammendale buildings were built in 1985 and 1986 and purchased by WRIT in 1997 and 1999. WRIT achieved a net book gain of $9.3 million and a 15% internal rate of return on the properties which were sold to an institutional investor.
"These sales further our stated asset recycling strategy to help fund a portion of our acquisition pipeline. These investments have performed well for us and we look forward to reinvesting the proceeds into accretive acquisitions in the near future. WRIT will continue to focus future investment on high quality assets inside the Beltway, near major transportation nodes, or in areas with stable and growing employment drivers," said George "Skip" McKenzie, President and Chief Executive Officer of WRIT.
WRIT is a self-administered, self-managed, equity real estate investment trust investing in income-producing properties in the greater Washington metro region. WRIT owns a diversified portfolio of 85 properties totaling approximately 11 million square feet of commercial space and 2,540 residential units. These 85 properties consist of 25 office properties, 16 industrial/flex properties, 18 medical office properties, 15 retail centers, 11 multifamily properties and land for development. WRIT shares are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:WRE).
Certain statements in our earnings press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, the effect of the current credit and financial market conditions, the availability and cost of capital, fluctuations in interest rates, tenants' financial conditions, the timing and pricing of lease transactions, levels of competition, the effect of government regulation, the impact of newly adopted accounting principles, changes in general and local economic and real estate market conditions, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in our filings with the SEC, including our 2009 Form 10-K and third quarter 2010 10-Q. We assume no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events.
Source: Washington Real Estate Investment Trust
Released December 22, 2010